


Down We Go

by CarbonMeatbag



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Blackwatch Commander Jack Morrison, Canon-Typical Violence, Conspiracy, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, POV Gabriel Reyes, POV Jesse McCree, Reaper76 Week 2017, Reverse Chronology, Sexual Content, Slice of Life, Some Fluff, Strike-Commander Gabriel Reyes, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:21:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarbonMeatbag/pseuds/CarbonMeatbag
Summary: The clock is rewound; the cards fall differently. Gabriel Reyes leads Overwatch into the first years of peace humanity has seen in a decade. At his side is Jack Morrison, Commander of Blackwatch and the man who changed everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Rated Explicit for Blood/Gore and Eventual Sexual Content, Mature Themes, and Violence**

**Day 0**

- 

Gabriel Reyes chases after him, down to the basement levels, down to the dusty, lifeless places where the only things that move are the silent security drones that keep their vigils. He had only been down here once before, when construction was nearly finished, on a compound-wide tour that had taken over three fucking hours. They had asked for some photo-ops afterwards, a few choice words to christen the sparkling new Overwatch HQ, but he had blown them off (politely), and spent the rest of his evening breaking in his new bed with Jack.

That must have been one of the highlights of his life, career and personal. He had cried that night, tangled in Jack’s embrace, swept up in the multitude of emotions and surreal quality of it all. The heavy echo of his boots off the concrete walls also feels surreal now. But he wants to wake up from _this_ dream.

Gabriel smashes through a set of hollow metal doors into the reactor room. Jack is straight ahead, having ripped back some paneling and is now waist deep into fiddling with some wiring. “Jack!” he bellows. The pistol in his right hand feels feather-light, ready for some action. Commander Morrison doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge his presence. “Step. Away,” Gabriel orders, striding towards the other man.

He has to yank Jack away from the reactor console by the collar. The motion sends Jack sprawling across the tiled floor. “I’m trying to save us!” the other man screeches, pushing himself up off the ground. The first words they’ve said to each other in six months.

“Save us from _your_ lackeys?” Gabriel yells incredulously. “You betrayed us, Jack! You really were working for _t_ _hem_ this whole fucking time!”

“No!” Jack screams; his voice reverberates in the open space, snaps across Gabriel’s skin. “Everything I did, I did for _you_! I did it to protect you! To protect what you built! You need to trust me…” There’s a shattering ache in that voice that the Strike-Commander fails to ignore.

“You shut me out, Jack,” he spits; he’s grown too cold to this. “You went dark. How do you expect me to believe you!?” Gabriel raises his gun, brings it level with the Blackwatch Commander’s chest.

Behind them, the reactor starts a terrifying howl. Gabriel’s glad the compound’s AI has been blown to shit so there isn’t a voice counting down their likely demise. _Five minutes until you are vaporized Strike-Commander. Please consult the latest emergency protocols for the nearest exit._

There’s a wretched look in Jack’s eyes now. A bottomless sea of things unsaid and secrets kept. In their other life, he would have done everything to banish the hurt in those blue eyes, but he hasn’t been that person in years. When Jack speaks, the words still cut deep, “Because I still loved you, Gabe. We… we were both betrayed.”

Jack takes a short step towards Gabriel, towards the reactor console. “Don’t move,” the Strike-Commander growls. His other hand comes up to steady the pistol aimed at Jack.

“There’s still some time left! I think I can deactivate—”

“I said don’t move, Jack!”

“—I can stop this! Please!—”

“ _J_ _ack!_ Listen to me, for once in your goddamn life!”

Commander Morrison is still coming, so Gabriel pulls the trigger.

The other man goes down to one knee, a hand on the ground holds him up. The bullet hit him square in the chest, right at the thickest point of his body armor; it wasn’t enough to pierce flesh, but enough to still hurt like a motherfucker. Jack swears and slams a fist into the floor before standing back up. There’s exasperation in his eyes now, but also a terrible amount of sadness that Gabriel wasn’t expecting.

A small timer goes off on Jack’s person. Gabriel watches as the other man fishes a small device from a pocket, laughs bitterly at it and chucks it, along with his earpiece, onto the floor. “Outta time,” he says flatly, with a grin that doesn’t reach his crystal eyes.

The Strike-Commander lowers his weapon and stares at the defeated man before holstering the pistol. “They’re going to execute you, you know.” It should be depressing how easily he can say those words, but perhaps he can’t be shocked anymore. “You won’t get a ‘fair trial’ for this, Jackie.”

“I know.” Jack croaks. “I won’t… I won’t fight them, Gabe. I know this looks bad.”

The first rumbles start then, the sound of Overwatch’s final moments. A paragon to peace about to be brought to its knees. Gabriel’s shoulders sag and he lets a ragged breath be ripped from him. _It’s over,_ his mind reels. _It’s all over_.

“You should get out of here,” Jack says over the distant explosions.

“Why?”

“Someone has to stop Talon.”

“And it has to be me?” he scoffs, feeling the bone-tired weariness stronger than ever.

Jack cards a scarred hand through his vibrant, blond locks. The blue glow from the multi-billion dollar reactor douses him in an eerie light, gives him dark shadows across his handsome face. “I tried, and look where it got me. You were always the smarter one.” The shocks grow closer now; dust is knocked out of every corner and crevice. The reactor makes a deep, protesting groan. “Gabriel,” the Blackwatch Commander pleads, “you need to go.”

He doesn't know why he says it, the words just come tumbling out, “Come with me.”

And for the first time in years, Jack Morrison does what he’s told.

\---

They race through the collapsing Zürich base, passing hallways and rooms filled with years of memories, both good and bad.

_They had one of Fareeha’s birthdays there. Reinhardt dropped her cake during the song, but she was a good sport about it. The Crusader had asked the kitchen staff to serve birthday cake for the next week to make up for it._

_Down there, through those doors, that’s where Jack had run off to when Gabriel told him that Ana was killed in the field. They stayed there, outside, long into the night. Until they were out of tears and out of dreams._

_That’s the conference room where he saw the news. Five months ago, when Jack’s face popped up on a grainy video clip of a research vessel being raided right in Tokyo harbor. The crew, all civilians, had been butchered. News outlets had covered the story for weeks. He was dragged to no less than seven meetings about it._

That last one still stung, even as the man in question sprinted next to him. It should have been frightening, watching someone you thought you knew like the back of your hand become… become a what… an international criminal slash _murderer_? But no, he was probably the only person on the planet that saw it coming. He had hoped, _desperately_ hoped, that his intuitions were wrong. They weren’t.

Something had gotten into Jack Morrison and festered there, had poisoned him from the inside out. He blamed himself some nights, for causing the rifts in their relationship and pushing Jack away. Other times he felt petty, and convinced himself that Jack had always been jealous of his success and presence on the world stage. Something like that would have been easy to put down. Instead, he had felt like he was watching something he created, something he had honed and trained and loved, be turned against him. Like a plot line ripped straight from a predictable summer blockbuster.

If he somehow survives this, Gabriel wants answers.

They near the loading docks but tremors from the explosions have crumbled the skywalk connecting the main facilities from where they want to be. Jack says they need to make the jump, four stories down, onto the cement below. There’s no time, apparently. The reactor will blow any second.

Gabriel breaks his kneecaps on the landing (his boots slipped on the mushy, first snowfall). Jack carries him to the far side of the loading docks, sets up them up under the massive overhang, out of the weather. The Blackwatch Commander unstraps a biotic emitter from Gabriel’s belt and plants it next to him.  

“Why’d you do it, Jack,” he grits through the jittery pain of the biotic field fixing him up. Snowflakes waft across Jack’s face, alighting on his flushed, fair skin. It’s almost romantic; only Overwatch burning in the background really kills the mood.

“I didn’t have a choice,” the other man sighs, producing a smoke grenade from his own belt clip. Jack snaps the pin off and tosses it into the growing snowbank nearby. It puffs violet smoke into the choked sky.

“We all have choices.”

“Well, the other option was something I couldn’t live with.”

“Oh but you can live with _this_?” he sneers.

“I didn’t know this would happen!” There’s a long moan from the Overwatch HQ and then the R&D wing buckles under as well. Jack watches it fall; Gabriel can’t bring himself to stare. Jack speaks again with a voice on the verge of breaking, “You were right, Gabe. You’re always right.” The other man crumples to the ground. “I _was_ your only weakness, and they _knew_. I thought… for so long, I thought you meant that I wasn’t strong enough or clever enough or discreet enough, and that’s why I made you vulnerable. But that wasn’t it.

“It… it was my love for you, Gabriel Reyes. The fact that I would do anything for you, that’s why I was your weakness. They knew if they wanted to bring you down, I had to be the weapon.”

‘ _Everything I did, I did for you! I did it to protect you!’_

Misguided love. That’s what brings the world down.

Jack hangs his head, body shakes with poorly hidden sobs. Gabriel feels tears fall down his face too, the magnitude of it all finally catching up, he guesses. It was probably inevitable in the end. He had felt something wrong but didn’t act upon it. He had bet on being able to fix whatever the root of the problem was whenever it decided to rear its ugly head. He’d never conceived of this.

“Jack, I—”

It’s then that the reactor detonates. Like a volcanic eruption, collapsing debris from Overwatch HQ now sails into the sky. Huge chunks of concrete, rebar, steel, and shards molten glass smash and fall and rain to earth like a scene out of Revelation. Jack is up on his feet in an instant, lunging towards Gabriel. The other man’s mouth moves; he thinks Jack says something, but he can’t hear it over the thunderous cataclysm. The Blackwatch Commander flings his broken body into the snowbank as the overhang they were under caves in.

\---

He screams and screams and screams for help until he’s beyond hoarse. With shaking fingers, he wipes away the horrible river of crimson flowing down the Jack’s face. It threatens to spill into the dead man’s unblinking eyes but Gabriel won’t let those gorgeous pools be marred. He cradles Jack’s busted head until a chopper arrives and rough hands pry him from the other man. He yells at them to help Jack, not him, but no one does.

Someone walks over to Jack Morrison’s body and lays a white sheet across the still face.

Everything feels so unreal.

He’s thrown into the chopper and whisked away to be healed. His bones will be mended and his heart will still beat, but Gabriel Reyes died that day, next to the only person who ever really mattered.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU hit me hard and fast. I love these boys that make me sad, and I love making them sadder. So, yeah, the heavy angst tag will be earned :') Future chapters are coming, ones that explore how Gabriel's and Jack's relationship unfolded under a different power structure, what a Blackwatch under Morrison might have looked like, and what happens after Zurich. No ETA though since the fic bunnies are multiplying out of control. My aim with this fic is to have shorter, dense chapters so it can have a more regular update schedule. I tend to like being completely done with an arc/story and post huge word dumps (because I change stuff so often), but Im aiming to treat this one differently. More ~2k chapters and not 10k epics
> 
> I hope you enjoyed my one day writing blitz for Reaper76 week Day 2 "In His Shoes". Please leave a kudos if I've earned it, or a comment below; I love conversing with my readers!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at http://carbonmeatbag.tumblr.com/  
> Or on Discord at Jinxblog#9567  
> Or on PC Overwatch at Jinxblog#1427
> 
> Did you like my writing? Do you ship McHanzo and R76? I am in need of beta readers/editors!! If interested, please give me a poke! I have multiple fics in progress!!


	2. Chapter 2

**8 months prior**

-

Gabriel leaves his hotel room as the last rays of sunshine are dipping behind the Paris cityscape. The World Security Summit is being held on a weekday night so he gets to listen uninterrupted to the delightful echo of his dress shoes hitting the centuries-old bricks. The City of Light is gorgeous this time of year, with the chill breezes sweeping through the winding city blocks, and the delightful glow of candles in window sills or string lights wrapped around the trunks of trees. It’s just as any travel site promises, dripping with romantic undertones.

The Strike-Commander tugs on his tuxedo sleeves, feeling predictably naked and vulnerable as he makes the short walk to the exhibition center. He’s always awful at these sorts of things: can’t remember who’s who, habitually failing to provide stimulating small talk to officials and dignitaries he’ll likely never meet again, and dreading, most of all, how his little social blunders will remain logged in his traitorous mind to be re-lived later tonight before bed, in tomorrow's morning shower, and three weeks from now when he’s pouring a bowl of cereal. He’s alone too, to make a desperate situation worse. The heads of Overwatch’s Research and Development and Environmental Divisions will be in attendance, but he’s never really gotten to know the two women well enough to have asked if a third-wheel arrangement is possible.

And of course, there’s that little nagging possibility in the back of his mind. The one that had him arguing with himself in the bathroom until he reached a sort of “fuck it, I’m done” inner peace.

The chance that Jack might be here.

But he doesn’t get another opportunity to dwell on that because he soon rounds a corner and sees a swarm of paparazzi on the steps to the Summit doors. He pauses, taking a moment to gird himself for this war of attrition and trudges forward.

\---

Just when Gabriel had convinced his buzzing mind that Jack was definitely a no-show, he spots the man in the crowd.

There’s something measurably magical about watching Jack in his element. He’s the difference between someone with talent and true _mastery._ His laughs are never forced and his flashing smiles never empty, because Jack could always find something genuinely interesting in anyone he meets. He legitimately listened about what you said, and he never failed to remember faces and the names that went with them. He’d met one of your drinking buddies and two years later ask how their daughter was liking the 5th grade while you had forgotten the little bugger’s name entirely (Marissa? No...Maria? Did it even start with ‘M’?).

Jack always burned bright in a sea of pretty and powerful people. He was the kind of person that turned heads and made you wish you had better company. Gabriel could always watch Jack forever, happily letting the other man have the limelight while he hovered around, perfectly content to enjoy the intelligent conversations Jack conjured up.

Which is why these sorts of things used to be so much easier when they were together.

Gabriel’s about half an hour into his blatant staring when their eyes finally lock together. In true Morrison style, the other man walks straight towards him, leaving his group with disappointed and forlorn looks. The Strike-Commander’s spine snaps straight and the empty glass clutched in his hand suddenly feels awkward as Jack approaches. He hadn’t wanted to give it up earlier for being sure he would pass into complete social ineptitude otherwise, with his hands in his pockets, hugging the shadowed walls, watching Jack owlishly from afar, but now it seems almost childish to cling to.

Jack nears him, partaking in an unapologetic onceover of Gabriel’s white tie attire. “You look handsome,” Jack says with a tiny smile.

It’s hard to ignore the way his chest tightens upon hearing Jack’s voice without any of the electronic feedback conference calling has never seemed to overcome. Has it really been over a year since they were in the same room together?

“Likewise,” he replies, lingering on the other man’s features he used to know so well. Age has not diminished Jack Morrison’s beauty and charming aura, but there are hard lines on the man’s face that weren’t there before. Stories behind each one that Gabriel will never hear or know. “I... heard about Jesse. He never struck me as the kind of man to just up and leave…” Gabriel trails off, shifting his weight.

Jack’s shoulders sag as he turns to look out at the rest of the party. “I didn’t see it coming either.”

“How’s the rest of Blackwatch doing?” he says, partly out of casual curiosity and partly out of selfish prying.

“I’m sure you’ve also heard of our mounting casualties,” Jack sighs. “But I guess that’s the price we pay when they want our fingers in nearly every global conflict.”

There it was again, the mysterious _they_. The secretive architects that had reinstated the former branch of Overwatch as a fully fledged sister organization. Jack’s crew had absorbed the more militaristic operations while Overwatch itself became a sort of global Tomorrowland, representing the human race’s latest achievements in science, and being a champion for human and social rights. It was an odd new setup that had him privately questioning why he was still in charge. He was an old war hero after all, and war wasn’t fashionable anymore.

Jack’s eyes fall on the perspiring glass Gabriel is still holding. With a gentle motion, the Blackwatch Commander takes it and sets it on an abandoned table. His calloused hands find Gabriel’s palm and cautiously squeezes it. “You were furious when Blackwatch was reassigned.”

“You left,” Gabriel utters, conquering the lump in his throat.

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“So I should have just expected less from you? The Blackwatch wing was like a ghost town, carefully and methodically packed up and shipped out. You _must_ have known about the reassignment long before the switch became official. And you choose to look me in the eye and say _nothing_ , for days, maybe weeks!

“How was I not supposed to be angry at that, Jack? To just wake up one morning and be told that you’ve vanished, along with all of Blackwatch. Didn’t I deserve a little more respect than that?” Gabriel can’t tell if he sounds tired, or frustrated, or morose; the only thing he does know is that his hand is still in Jack’s, holding onto him.

Jack’s summer sky eyes break their held gaze. “You did the same to me,” the other man says softly.

“Don’t. That’s not a fair comparison and you know it.”

“I don’t actually. How was that different, Gabriel?”

His own name has never sounded so wrong before. “Because,” he starts, “that was personal, and… and this was business.”

“By that logic you should’ve- _ha_ ,” Jack stops himself suddenly, a broken laugh tumbling out from the other man. “I’m sorry, there’s no sense in digging up the past. It… it doesn’t matter anymore.”

All at once, Gabriel _aches_. He’s swept up and dragged out to sea by the bitter way Jack’s voice wanders off.

What a wretched thing it is, to miss a lost love. To look upon someone and simultaneously know who they were but perhaps not who they are now. To be reminded of, with crystal clarity, the tender moments invoked by a stray thought or mundane object. But perhaps what is worst of all, is knowing that he gave it all up for the ‘greater good’ and in these long years, that justification has never held up.

Gabriel rotates his hand so he is now the one holding Jack’s.

There’s chasms between them, filled with miserable, missed opportunities, but also with the whisperings of happy memories. Perhaps Jack can feel it too, from the way those exhausted eyes linger upwards to look at him. Which is worse? To know for certain a love has died? Or to be haunted by its lingering ghosts, forever caught in an in-between?

Jack moves, placing his warm hand against Gabriel’s cheek. A thumb brushes across his skin with a shattering pain. He allows it to linger before batting it aside. “We’re not exactly invisible over here,” he forces himself to say, attempting to reign back their behavior.

“Why does it matter what other people think?” Jack replies easily.

“Because I’m-”

“Not my CO anymore. And you haven’t been for a while now.” Jack’s hand now snakes its way into Gabriel’s tuxedo sleeve. He burns where they touch; a light tug could put them on a collision course.

“Don’t…” he pleads weakly, swaying on his feet, the prelude to falling. Gabriel sees the dangerous fire dancing in those sapphire eyes. He knows what Jack is going to say.

“I’ve only ever asked for one thing in this world, when it has asked _so_ much of me.”

“We can’t always get what we want, Jack.”

“I know,” Jack smiles, “but I can’t stop asking for it.”

The threads unwind, Gabriel knows he is caught in the same trap. “This would be a mistake,” he whispers.

“Probably.”

\---

They leave for Jack’s hotel and pull together as soon the door shuts behind them. It should be harder than it is to fall into their familiar steps, a dance perhaps unpracticed but never forgotten.

Their coupling burns through them like a wildfire, leaving coals behind that hiss and snap. The sour salt of Jack’s sweat across Gabriel’s lips, the sickly smell of a cologne too sweet. His fingers bury themselves in hair peppered with white strands amongst the wheaty blond. He is drowned by the pleasured whines and noises that sing from Jack’s mouth, lost to the bends and folds of Jack’s body.

Everything is euphoric, yet inescapably tinged with pain.

His mind chants frantically: _You gave this up. You gave this up. You gave this up._

A back arches in release.

_You can’t have this. You can’t have this. You can’t have this._

Jack’s name spoken like a desperate prayer.

Sun-burnt arms that hold him in the darkness.

“Stay?”

A request he doesn't refuse.

\---

Gabriel leaves before the sun is up, with Jack still quietly snoring in bed. No goodbye, no parting kiss. Like the one-night stand it has to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be sad together y'all ;_;
> 
> Next time on Down We Go: a certain cowboy rolls into town ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**13 months prior**

-

A full moon rises over a Boracay beach.

It’s a funny series of events that results in Blackwatch’s A-team currently finding themselves celebrating a successful mission on this far flung, resort destination, but Jesse isn’t complaining. It’s been a long while since he’s had some time off and so he lounges back into the plastic lawn chair, amusedly watching one of the newer recruits proclaim another round of drinks for the gathered party. Cheers erupt and the gunslinger catches the bartender looking slightly desperate.

“Think I ought to stop ‘em?” Jesse muses at the man sitting next to him.

Jack Morrison, whose blond hair is burnt a copper brown under the incandescent light, hides a smile behind his drink. “Nah,” the other man finally answers, “let them learn from their mistakes.”

“And if Luz over there falls asleep on the beach tonight?” Jesse asks, gesturing to the youngest agent of the group who has a growing congregation of empty shot glasses around him.

Jack ponders for a moment before merely shrugging. “I mean, he could do with a bit of sun.”

“Fair point,” Jesse concedes with a chuckle.

The two men observe the Blackwatch agents mingle about and holler at each other until Jack does something unusual. It’s a slow but deliberate thing as the Commander stands up, places his comm slowly on the wooden table, taps it almost absentmindedly, and walks away without saying a word. Looking over his shoulder, Jesse sees the other man meander towards the gently crashing ocean beyond.

The senior agent pauses before reaching into his pocket and depositing his own device next to Jack’s. He leaves his drink and the chittering party behind as he follows Jack into the darkness.

Jack’s waiting at the water’s edge, in a quiet bubble away from the beachside restaurants and any people still lingering on the soft, bleached sands. They say nothing for a while, simply observing the waxing moon rise higher into the night sky, catching its silver reflection dance across the rippled ocean. When Jesse just begins to feel himself be engulfed by the night, Jack breaks the silence.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” he says.

“What’dya mean?”

“I’ve been… keeping things from you, and now it’s time to come clean.”

The first stirrings of worry spark to life in Jesse’s gut. The Blackwatch Commander can’t look at him when the next words spill out in a blur.

“They’re not dead, Jesse.”

The gunslinger’s chest sputters. “ _Who’s_ not dead-”

“Benez, Hudson… Elsie.”

Everything bubbles up at once, bewilderment, relief, then confusion and finally a deep anger, something near betrayal. Jesse turns away; a hand comes up to cover his mouth as his mind _reels_ from Jack’s words.  The look in Jack’s eyes on the days they… the sadness looked real!... how could someone fake _that_. The pain and hurt eventually win out over him, and he whirls on Jack after some long moments.

“You watched me _mour_ -” Jesse’s voice cracks and he tries again, “You watched me _mourn_ them. For _months_ , Jack. W-Why would you do that to me! What could have possibly possessed you to-”

“I think Blackwatch may have been compromised.”

The words ring like a church bell on Sunday. Clear and snapping. Jesse sways there for a moment, trying to process something that couldn’t be true for the second time that night. He can feel his mouth hanging agape as the ocean spray licks across it.

“You noticed it too. You must have,” Jack simply adds.

Jesse had, of course. The awful feeling he got from watching the new Blackwatch agents, that something sinister and _wrong_ slithered underneath their normal demeanors, the moments of brutality, how Jack sometimes struggled to bring them to heel and the nature of their introductions to Blackwatch. It didn’t ever sat right with Jesse how they received an influx of new recruits right as they either lost some old agents or were assigned to something big. But there was never any time to bring it up, and he had often written it off as being one of the “senior” agents begrudged in the face of eventual change.

Jack sees his slow nod and continues, “They were my closest and most trusted agents and therefore no doubt the ones with the biggest targets on their backs. So I sent them away, had them arrange plans and opportunities where they could slip away with _everyone_ ”—the older man emphasizes, taking a moment to lock eyes with Jesse—“thinking they were dead. I’m not entirely sure if that’s just doomed Blackwatch faster, but I’d rather that my friends be alive and still doing good work than assassinated or in the hands of Talon. And at this point, I have to assume they have their claws in everyone, ‘cept you of course.”

“What makes you say that?” Jesse blubbers.

Under the the moonlight, Jack’s hair and skin is a heavy gray. His eyes too, as dark and black as the midnight, Philippine sea. “Because I raised you,” Jack says with a shattering smile.

Jesse bites the inside of his lip to keep it from quivering, and looks at the waves crashing against his feet.

“Jesse…”

“Mm?” he chokes out.

“It’s your turn now.”.

“For what?” Jesse finally forces himself to glance back to the older man. Part of him wishes he didn’t because Jesse sees the long tiredness on Blackwatch Commander’s shoulders that you don’t truly shrug off. Despite whatever stuff they pumped into Jack Morrison, under this gray light, he looks his age for the first time. Wrinkles, crinkles, crow’s feet, weathered skin. A soldier that’s never left the battlefield.

“For me to send you away.” Before Jesse can open his mouth, Jack goes on, “Something’s _happening_ here and I don’t have a goddamn clue what. And it all—when I think I get an idea, it doesn’t make any sense! What happened to Gérard, to _Amélie_ , I’ve never stopped thinking about that. And it makes me… terrified. Of what they might be capable of.”

“If there’s something happening to Overwatch then you need me! You can’t just try to send me away-”

“I have no clue what we could be dealing with here-”

“I can help you-!”

“No!” Jack nearly yells. Jesse can see other beach goers turn to their direction, watching with curious eyes. Jack takes a deep breath and speaks again. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t watch the same thing happen to you.”

Jesse’s hands clutch into fists and tremble with a feeling of helplessness. “Then you need to go as well. You need to get out, Jack,” he pleads.

But Jack simply shakes his head. “I can’t. I think… I think they have me already. These days, I’m almost certain they know about what Gabriel and I were. What I... still am.”

The cowboy’s stomach roils at the admission. “Shit.”

They stand in silence as the moon creeps ever higher above the inky waters. Jesse hates it all: how it makes sense, how Jack lied to protect him, how it seems like the man keeps breaking himself for everyone else, and above all, how he can’t say no to what Jack is asking of him. How the most logical course of action seems to be him abandoning the closest people in his life. Essentially running away.

“The UN is making Blackwatch it’s own entity,” Jack says suddenly. “With it’s own headquarters and everything. I want you out within two week after we make the move.”

“Does Reyes know?”

“...No.”

“You gonna tell him?”

“No,” Jack whispers. “I don’t want to put him in any more danger than he already might be in. I have to play their game. And the separation will be good, will keep him safe.”

“He’ll hate you for pulling a stunt like that.”

“I know.”

“Then why? I know it kills ya.”

“Because the more he despises me, the more distance he puts between us, the more no one will think he was involved if Blackwatch is compromised.”

Jesse’s arms fling out wildly as he speaks. “And what about you? What if worst comes to worst? People could think you’re a criminal, Jack! A terrorist!”

“They might.” It was the way the older man said it that stopped any further arguments from Jesse, a quiet resignation from someone who had long since accepted the outcomes of the path they were on.

But Jack Morrison didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve to be framed for a crime of this scale after essentially saving the whole fucking planet. Didn’t deserve to have his personal life dug up and his heart used against him.

There’s a problem though with thinking there’s righteousness in this world, because frankly the universe doesn’t give a shit. And good people don’t always get what they deserve.

In a small voice, Jesse finally asks, “Are you absolutely sure you can’t leave?”

With a broken laugh under the haunting, full moon Jack only says, “‘The captain goes down with the ship’.”

\---

Nearly a month later, when Jesse crushes his Blackwatch comm under his boot and slips into a crowded Marrakesh market, he knows what they would be saying about him: coward, deserter, dishonorable discharge.

But Jesse McCree will hold true to his promise to Jack that night on a Boracay beach. As sure as he knows the weight and feel of his Peacekeeper in his hands, they—Talon, the UN, whomever the fuck was behind this— _they_ would answer for this. Yes, he would watch, and he would wait, and he would plan, and if… no, _when_ the world needed Overwatch again, he would be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to preemptively clear up any future confusion, the timestamps in bold at the beginning of each chapter are in respect to Chapter One and the Zurich explosion. So for example, this chapter takes place 13 months **before** the Overwatch HQ goes up in flames and NOT 13 months before the Paris Summit (i.e. this scene takes place 5 months before Paris). All future chapters will follow this rule until we jump back to the present day.


End file.
